Giving the Poly Digit a try, mostly for reverbs... Just a thought as well

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PdotCdot

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It's not necessary, as I love the Fractal Reverbs, but kinda couldn't help myself. I'm a bit of a reverb junkie and don't want to have to rely on going through my DAW for some variety when I feel like it.
Got me thinking though... In my experience the best plugins there are rely on convolution-based reverbs. Basically a reverb IR for those who've never come across this. They typically require far less computing power (from what I've read at least) and in the production world they are considered about as good as it gets for realism.
Just wondering if this has ever been discussed on the forums here and/or if it has ever been considered by the Fractal team. I did a search and couldn't come up with anything.
Might save some CPU in the FM3 and obviously the Fractal team know a thing or two about how to get the most out of IRs.
 
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I’m interested in what you think if the Digit. If I buy a digital effect unit to supplement the FM3 that’s the top of my list.
 
I believe Cliff stated in the past that convolution reverbs were less accurate or less realistic...

Edit:

Here's the post I was thinking about. Can't believe I remembered this from 2014!

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/posts/1111995/bookmark

Although he was actually referring to something another expert said and I was wrong about the "accurate" part, but I'll let you read it ;)
 
The Reverb IR's in the Poly are really fun if you want "set and forget" style verbs - it comes loaded with several real spaces as well as IR's of hardware reverbs like plates, springs and various digital reverb units. Convolution reverb is really fun for "weird" spaces though; for example, the inside of a pringles can, or a guitar string being scratched.

if you want big, lush reverbs the Fractal verbs are hard to beat though.

The latest Poly update also merges the previously seperate firmwares (Digit - convolution, Beebo - mod) into one which is way more straightforward. I mostly use mine for the eurorack modules though, and occasionally I'll use the sequencer, drum patterns and chaos controller as external control sources with the FM3.
 
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I’ll make sure to share my thoughts. Should be here in the next day or two. Might take me some time to wrap my head around being able to use properly, but I’ll be sure to post.
I’m with 2112 as far as the quality of the Fractal verbs are concerned. I’ll go one further and add that in my tests against other all-in-one stomp reverbs, the Fractal stuff beats them for small, tight spaces and rooms and not just the big stuff. I don’t gravitate toward the big stuff, so I spend a lot of time on the small stuff. Takes some tweaking and understanding of the different effect that each parameter has on the space, but they just do things that others can’t.
Really looking forward to giving the Digit a go as it truly is unique in everything it does and how it goes about doing that.
 
I found it hard to bond with the Beebo/Digit. I haven't sold it yet, but I'm close.

I've come up with some pretty cool soundscapes, but nothing I've been able to incorporate in my Axe/FM3 setup.

There are no "mix" controls with the reverb. You set the mix by attaching a link from the input to the output, then from the input to the reverb input, then from the reverb output to the Beebo output, then raise or lower gain at any point along the chain. It's quite cumbersome, especially if you're trying to work with stereo (which, by the way, the Beebo has two input jacks and two output jacks, both of which are TRS, effectively making it 4-in/4-out, but being tedious and requiring a TRS 1/4" to dual TS cable to take advantage of). Then, to make matters more convoluted, the "stereo reverb" module does not have stereo input; only stereo output.

There's a lot to love about the unit; the relatively okay touchscreen, the amount of effects, the sonic possibilities, but, like the Empress ZOIA before it, you have to squeeze A LOT to get a tiny bit of juice out of it. May or may not be worth your time, depending on how you like tweaking and working with numerous instances of gain staging and stereo imaging.
 
Ugly Bunny said:
I found it hard to bond with the Beebo/Digit. I haven't sold it yet, but I'm close.

I've come up with some pretty cool soundscapes, but nothing I've been able to incorporate in my Axe/FM3 setup.

There are no "mix" controls with the reverb. You set the mix by attaching a link from the input to the output, then from the input to the reverb input, then from the reverb output to the Beebo output, then raise or lower gain at any point along the chain. It's quite cumbersome, especially if you're trying to work with stereo (which, by the way, the Beebo has two input jacks and two output jacks, both of which are TRS, effectively making it 4-in/4-out, but being tedious and requiring a TRS 1/4" to dual TS cable to take advantage of). Then, to make matters more convoluted, the "stereo reverb" module does not have stereo input; only stereo output.

There's a lot to love about the unit; the relatively okay touchscreen, the amount of effects, the sonic possibilities, but, like the Empress ZOIA before it, you have to squeeze A LOT to get a tiny bit of juice out of it. May or may not be worth your time, depending on how you like tweaking and working with numerous instances of gain staging and stereo imaging.
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Thanks for the response! I got the Poly a couple of weeks ago, it's a little frustrating to work with but for me worth the investment. Just the looper alone is great. I just ordered the FM3 so I'm looking forward to connecting them and seeing what I can do with both of them. Your absolutely right about the reverb I wish there was better control in the module. Have you used the zoia that's next on my list. I'm still attached to the idea of outboard effects maybe that will change once I get some time to dig into the FM3.
 
Dwill29 said:
Thanks for the response! I got the Poly a couple of weeks ago, it's a little frustrating to work with but for me worth the investment. Just the looper alone is great. I just ordered the FM3 so I'm looking forward to connecting them and seeing what I can do with both of them. Your absolutely right about the reverb I wish there was better control in the module. Have you used the zoia that's next on my list. I'm still attached to the idea of outboard effects maybe that will change once I get some time to dig into the FM3.
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Yep; I have the ZOIA. Kinda the same thing; some very cool possibilities, but the UI is a little frustrating and I/O routing & gain staging are annoying. It's got a pretty active community, though, so that's good.

I haven't updated my Poly to the new FW that has the looper yet, nor the one that combines both the Digit & Beebo into one FW. Maybe it's time to bust it out again and play around...

As far as outboard effects, yeah, I still have a few cool pedals (thus my Beebo, ZOIA, some Chase Bliss, a big Moog analog delay, King of Tone, etc.) but I literally NEVER use them other than to just play around. That is, they're not in my rig. I can do anything I can imagine and more just within the Axe Fx. I haven't ever really built anything too crazy, but I'm sure I'd be able to figure out how to port it to the FM3 if I needed.

In the meantime, I highly suggest you play with the Megatap Delay and the Plex Delay blocks :)
 
The Loopler is wild on the latest fw. It's way more in the experimental/drone/glitch style than a phrase sampler and you can patch it to itself to make it a feedback looper. I'm mostly using mine as a synth now that it accepts midi via usb
 
2112 said:
The Loopler is wild on the latest fw. It's way more in the experimental/drone/glitch style than a phrase sampler and you can patch it to itself to make it a feedback looper. I'm mostly using mine as a synth now that it accepts midi via usb
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Do you have a video on using it as w synth w/ MIDI? Sounds interesting...
 
I just found out about the Poly Beebo/Digit. Looks like a fun machine. But do you think it is overkill when you already have an Axe fx II, H9 and effects in your DAW? I mainly like the beebo for it's looper I think and some synth stuff maybe. Do you think it's worth the time investment and effect chasing rabit hole?

Does it have a decent pitch shifter/harmonizer by the way?
 
@CodePoet there's a few sounds here (sorry I didn't get back to you sooner!)



@Bodde there's no dedicated harmonizer but there is a basic pitch shifter - the pitch detection is pretty slow and there's a lot of latency.
 
2112 said:
@Bodde there's no dedicated harmonizer but there is a basic pitch shifter - the pitch detection is pretty slow and there's a lot of latency.
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ok thanks. Think I will skip it for now then. Think I have enough effects in my Axe fx and H9 and some other pedals. I like the Echoplex style looper of the Beebo though and also the touchscreen and the synth stuff. But for standard effects I think it can't beat the Axe fx or the H9 (?).
 
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